Warhol influenced me because of his writing. If I had never read his writings and interviews, I would never have understood his work.
AI WEIWEII spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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I never think any place is better than others.
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We have to give our opinion, we have to say something, or we are a part of it. As an artist I am forced to say something.
AI WEIWEI -
It’s very essential values that we all have to protect. But in Chinese society, people are giving up on protecting these values.
AI WEIWEI -
It’s not really an ideology, but a method of control. But China’s problems are not just China’s problems – they’re human problems. Humanity has always worked better when you see it as one.
AI WEIWEI -
They’ve become part of a conspiracy, collaborators of the crime, which is lying to the general public and trying to hide the kind of criminal acts happening in many cases.
AI WEIWEI -
Even if there have been setbacks during these past years, China is changing. China’s society is opening.
AI WEIWEI -
I never had a sense of home.
AI WEIWEI -
Nationality started as something natural, but we should not be restrained by the old politics that make up these clear lines. It should have its own way of evolving. In some places, it will evolve slower and in others, faster.
AI WEIWEI -
Democracy, material wealth, and universal education are the soil upon which modernism exists.
AI WEIWEI -
Just look at the statistics: Each university has tens of thousands of applications for students who want to be in art school, but they can only accept a few hundred.
AI WEIWEI -
No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
AI WEIWEI -
Nationality and borders are barriers to our intelligence, to our imagination and to all kinds of possibilities.
AI WEIWEI -
In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.
AI WEIWEI -
Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market.
AI WEIWEI -
I never regret anything.
AI WEIWEI